Orizuru for Peace Project

Orizuru For Peace Project

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Sister State Pact with Hiroshima Prefecture and State of Hawaii, 1997-2017, Kauai Japanese Cultural Society will feature Orizuru For Peace Project at this year’s Matsuri Kauai Festival on Saturday, Oct. 7 at Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall in Lihue.

The project will invite people attending the festival to help create 1,000 Orizuru (paper cranes) made with origami papers which will be displayed as a centerpiece at the event. In advance, students at many Kauai schools will fold the cranes prior to the event and will be presented at the event on Oct. 7.
1000 origami papers, donated by Kauai’s four sister cities as well as friendship cities and cultural organizations in Japan, will be provided for people who wants to be part of the project.

Also, a special booth to highlight Hiroshima and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum with posters, books, postcards, maps and other collaterals will be on display as part of Orizuru For Peace Project which hopes to draw people to bring attention to Hiroshima, The City of Global Peace and its ongoing mission to promote global peace through abolition of nuclear-free world. The project would also like to encourage people on Kauai with ancestral roots in Hiroshima to come and sign up for the Hiroshima Kauai Club which is being planned for the near future.

In July 2017, Kauai Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr.; James Kealalio of County Parks & Recreation and Art Umezu, County’s Japan market specialist accompanied Kauai Yankees Little League team for their 1st Japan Goodwill Tour to play against Little League teams in Iwaki City (Sister City) and Hiroshima.

While in Mayor Carvalho and Kauai Yankees were invited to courtesy visits with Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui and Hiroshima Governor Hidehiko Yuzaki who mentioned about the 20th anniversary of Hiroshima-Hawaii Sister State.

Official delegations from Iwaki City; Suo Oshima and Ishigaki (all Kauai’s sister cities) will be represented at this year’s Matsuri Kauai Festival with Ishigaki group’s first time to the festival. Matsuri Kauai Festival is free and open to the public from 9 am-3 pm.

ORIZURU (Folding Paper Crane)

‘Ori or oru’ means to fold and ‘zuru or tsuru’ is a Japanese crane. Orizuru is a crane folded into its shape with a traditional Japanese paper called ‘origami’ which means folding paper. Orizuru is a representation of the Japanese red-crowned crane that is referred as the “Honored Lord Crane” in Japanese culture and history.

A thousand orizuru strung together is called ‘senba-zuru’ meaning ‘thousand cranes’. It is said that a thousand cranes need to be made in order for a wish to come true.

Sadako Sasaki was only two years old when an atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima on August 6, 1956, near her home. Sadako was one of the most recognized ‘hibaku-sha’ (bomb-affected person). She is remembered through the story of the one thousand origami cranes (orizuru) she folded before her death, and is to this day a symbol of the innocent victims of nuclear warfare.